INSTEAD of placing roadblocks, embattled Director of Public Prosecutions Mutembo Nchito should have allowed the Annel Silungwe Tribunal to proceed because this was going to accord him an opportunity to clear himself, prominent lawyer Sakwiba Sikota has observed.

“It is not the State that is delaying the commencement of the formal sittings of the tribunal constituted to investigate Mr Nchito. The commencement of the tribunal sittings has been delayed by the preliminary issues Mr Nchito has raised. Once the tribunal has made its ruling on the preliminary issues Mr Nchito has raised, our hope is that there shall be no further delays by coming up with other preliminary issues,” Mr Sikota said.

Mr Sikota said the State had always been ready to commence the proceedings of the tribunal but the preliminary issues Mr Nchito had raised had made it difficult for the tribunal to commence its formal; sittings.

Mr Sikota said he was of the hope that once the tribunal made its ruling on the many preliminary issues Mr Nchito had raised, the tribunal would commence its sittings and that Mr Nchito would be given the opportunity to he heard.

He stated that it was his hope that there would be no further delay in the proceedings because it was the expectation of Zambians that the matter should come to its logical conclusion.

Mr Sikota said the Annel Silungwe Tribunal was the best for Zambians and that its recommendations to President Edgar Lungu would determine the fate of Mr Nchito.

The Annel Silungwe Tribunal has failed to commence its formal sittings because Mr Nchito has raised preliminary issues among them the demand that former Chief Justices Mathew Ngulube and Ernest Sakala should recuse themselves.

Mr Nchito has also claimed that the tribunal was incompetent because some of the terms of references were allegedly lifted from a letter civil rights activist Brebner Changala wrote to President Lungu petitioning him to constitute a tribunal to investigate Mr Nchito.

The tribunal was expected to make its ruling on the preliminary issues Mr Nchito has raised on 7th May, 2015 but it has since moved the date to 15th May, 2015 as the date the ruling would be made.